This invention relates to voice and data distribution within a customer premise and in particular to achieving such distribution using in-place POTS telephone lines. It is further concerned with combining such intra-premise distribution with broadband service delivery to the customer premise. It also concerns independent broadband services confined within the customer premise, which utilize the existing in-place POTS telephone lines for in-home networking.
Telephone service has evolved from the traditional voice service of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) to a communication service providing voice communication, data transfer and communication and a host of many other services provided over a wideband communication link/channel. That link is no longer the traditional narrowband channel of POTS. What has evolved in its place is a wideband communication channel providing services requiring a wideband communication channel.
There are various schemes to bring wideband services from a communication network over a wideband channel to the customer premise. Use of in-home power lines and installation of special cabling for data transmission have been suggested but are not readily feasible due to cost or transmission clarity or both. An alternate scheme is concerned with using the existing customer premise in-place wiring which is typically twisted pair commonly used in POTS. There are several companies and associations that have been formed to deal with this state of affairs. One such association is The Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA) formed to promote high speed Ethernet technology for within the home (i.e., customer premise) high-speed connections. Development of specifications for interoperability of home-networked devices using already in-place POTS wiring is one of their objectives. Their position, in this matter, is described in a white paper entitled xe2x80x9cThe Home Phoneline Networking Alliancexe2x80x9d and dated June 1998. It is available at http://www.homepna.org. In that document the interoperability of multiple PCs and networking of devices for sharing simultaneous Internet access, PC peripheral sharing and file/application network sharing is discussed. In brief both normal telephony and networking must occupy and work over the same telephone lines simultaneously.
Spectral compatibility, between various services occupying different bandwidths, over common phone lines may be achieved by Frequency Division Multiplexing with each service being assigned a service band different from frequency bands used by other services. Interference between services may be handled by application of filtering techniques. In a suggested embodiment separation of different service types is achieved by the establishment of frequency ranges; Standard voice occupies a range of 20 Hz to 3.4 kHz, xDSL services occupy a frequency range of between 25 kHz to 1.1 MHz and phoneline networking operates in a range above 2 MHz. This division of frequencies is illustrated in the FIG. 1 graph.
The integrity of the high-speed data throughput transmitted over the phone lines is accomplished by encoding. One coding implementationxe2x80x94Time Modulation Line Codingxe2x80x94to insure integrity has been developed by Tut Systems, Inc (Tut). In this method each receiver has the ability to adapt to its local noise environment. All devices connected to the network continuously monitor line conditions and adjust to the existing conditions. The Tut system also incorporates access and collision detection as defined by the standard IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense multiple Access/Collision Detect).
A home gateway is used if a home is serviced by more than one access network such as a mix of cable, DSL, satellite and POTS. Various gateways for this purpose have been proposed by a plurality of telephone equipment manufacturers.
The systems so far described do not disclose dealing with the existence and creation of multiple phone extensions in the customer premise. The method of disaggregating the broadband signals delivered to the customer premise must also be considered.
Broadband services are provided to customer premises, whose existing premise wiring does not have broadband capability, by disaggregating the various signals, including broadband services, supplied to the premise from a broadband communication link at the customer premise""s edge, so that the existing POTS wires, within the customer premises, may function as separate channels for varied broadband and narrow band services. Intra premises broad band services are disaggregated so that POTS service responds normally to the network while internal LAN networks operate independently of the outside system network.
A particular embodiment allows one pair of twisted telephone wires to provide accommodation for three separate co-channels of communication covering POTS, xDSL (i.e., telephony LAN) and home data networking. The broadband frequency spectrum at the edge is divided into three frequency bands for intra-premise distribution. The first frequency band covers a frequency range to about 40 kHz, which is comparable to POTS. A second frequency band covers a range of 100 kHz to 1.1 MHz, which may be used for LAN service. A third frequency range covers a range of 2 MHz to 30 MHz for providing high speed data service.
Customer premise distribution is achieved by using a Broadband Communications Interface (BCI) which disaggregates the incoming signals from the incoming broadband signal. In the disclosed embodiment it accepts wireless, cable fiber and twisted pair and distributes them to customer premise power lines, indoor wireless systems and in-place phone lines.
In addition to the basic POTS phone line added telephone lines may be added to the intra-network. A Network Interface Device (NID) connects each CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) device to the telephony LAN (i.e., in-place POTS lines-twisted pair). Each NID allows the user of the connected device to select a new telephone line (i.e., a new directory number) and have it automatically provisioned. The NID registers this request with the BCI, which in turn requests the new phone line from the network.
Lifeline support for the POTS line is provided so that all phone lines are provided with ringing. The telephony LAN NID provides the ringing in common for all lines, by providing a low power ringer, to avoid overloading the network backup power.
In another embodiment multi-line voice and data service are combined into one frequency band. Protocols are used to manage contention issues in such use.